


Complications

by cells55



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hospitals, Post-Finale, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:29:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cells55/pseuds/cells55
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another take on post-finale angst: Mindy is home alone, not knowing where her boyfriend is, and before long experiencing some aches and pains that she can't ignore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She had never felt so alone in her life.

 

Her boyfriend and colleagues were all in Texas, recovering from the wedding of the century and probably having a blast; Gwen was out of town visiting Carl's family; Alex had been working in London for the past month; Rishi was in Boston trying to put their parents' belongings in storage for their year away.

 

She was filling the silences with the sound on her laptop cranked up as high it would go, ignoring the post-it across the room which seemed to glare at her. It had definitely been at least 24 hours without human contact, because she was bestowing a piece of paper with sentient powers. She didn't do well with being alone.

 

So it was kind of understandable, then, that when the headaches started, she pretended they weren't there. She had always had a default position with illness and maladies - if there were people around, then she would milk it for all it was worth; if she was alone, then she would pretend to be fine, until she really was fine. This method had a 90% success rate.

 

Apparently this was in that other 10%, because it didn't go away. In fact, the headaches just got worse, and when her vision started getting blurry - rudely interrupting her marathon of How I Met Your Mother episodes on Netflix - the doctor in her knew she had to stop ignoring and do something.

 

For once, she opted for the less dramatic option, and took a cab to the hospital, despite knowing that an ambulance would not have been a waste of anyone's time. Hell, if Danny were there, he probably would've insisted she were med-evac'ed in by helicopter.

 

But he wasn't there, was he?

 

That thought made her lids bow closed again, tipped her head back against the headrest. It made her feel like she was on a tilt-a-whirl, clinging on for dear life. Like she was going to throw up, and hadn't she done enough of that for a lifetime these past few months?

 

She just about heard the "you okay, lady?" and then the "we're here", but she didn't remember getting out of the cab, or how she wound up in a bed in the ER, surrounded by doctors and nurses. Glimpses of sound and sight barely seemed to join up. It was not dissimilar to that time she'd drank an entire bottle of apple schnapps as a follow up to the bottle of red wine at dinner, except without the benefit of a buzz to go along with it.

 

She didn't even have the energy to worry. Which was probably for the best.

 

"Don't worry, Dr Lahiri, you're in good hands - "

 

" - her blood pressure is through the roof - "

 

" - can we call anyone for you?" A hand squeezed hers, and she just about managed to open her eyes to meet the kindly gaze of someone she vaguely recognised. "Dr L?"

 

She just closed her eyes again. "No...s'okay..."

 

*****

 

"Sir, we need you to sit back down." The woman had scraped-back blonde hair and eyeliner which was slightly smudged on one eye. He knew how hard eyeliner was to apply only because Mindy had told him about six hundred times while he waited for her to get ready. Mindy. He had to lean back against the galley wall for a moment to gather his thoughts. "We're going through some turbulence."

 

He blinked back another wave of emotion - he had lost count of these waves now, endless like the sea thousands of feet below them - and nodded. "I know. I know. I just - I needed some - air," and he choked out a laugh. She looked unnerved. "Or what counts as air. Can I just stand here? I won't get injured."

 

"I'm sorry, sir, but the seatbelt sign is on." She pointed a pink manicured nail indicatively, as if he was a small child. "You have to return to your seat."

 

"You can't make one little exception?" he asked, something catching in his voice. "How much longer can there really be of this flight, anyway? We must be near New York by now."

 

She frowned slightly. "Sir, we've only been in the air for five hours. There's still ten hours to go."

 

His knees buckled a little, and he tried to steady his hands on his thighs, taking in a deep breath. "Ten fucking hours..."

 

"Sir - "

 

"I know." Somehow, he managed to straighten up. "Sit down. I'm going."

 

*****

 

He had only had about seven hours to process the news, anyway. His phone had rung, waking him from a blissfully-dreamless jet lag sleep, and his mood didn't improve when he saw Morgan's picture flashing up on the phone screen.

 

"Morgan, buddy, I told you that you don't need to keep me updated on the wedding - "

 

"Forget the wedding!" came Morgan's exuberant reply. 'Rock the Boat' by The Hues Corporation was blaring in the background, matched by a cheerful sounding crowd. "Although it is pretty awesome, I have to say."

 

"Why are you calling, Morgan?" he asked bluntly.

 

"I just logged in to Find My Phone, you know, see how everyone was doing - I have to use Tamra's phone to do it, because mine can only call, text, or play Tetris. I'm looking in to  new plan, though, and that should get me a new phone - "

 

He ran a weary hand over his face, desperately trying to wake up. "What is 'Find My Phone'? A metal detector?"

 

"Oh, Dr C, that's adorable. Actually, phones are mostly plastic and glass these days," he replied. "It's an app that helps you track your phone in case you lose it. I have it activated on all your phones so I can make sure you're all safe and sound."

 

Danny blinked slowly, trying to work through this. "Okay..."

 

"I thought you might want to know that Dr L is ignoring strict instructions to stay in bed, and is currently at the hospital." He paused dramatically. "WORKING."

 

Danny frowned. He still felt like his body and brain were in different time zones, and he was trying to play catch up. "She knows not to work."

 

"What can I tell ya, Dr C - that's where she is! The app doesn't lie."

 

An odd, sick feeling settled in his gut. "She wouldn't be working," he said again, quieter now.

 

The brief silence that followed didn't help calm the suddenly jangling nerves that filled him now. "Oh."

 

"I have to go, Morgan," he stood up, as if that would help. "Thanks for the heads up."

 

"Oh, sure - "

 

But Danny didn't let him finish; he had already hung up, and was dialling the number for St Brendan's, both knowing and not knowing what was to come.

 

It hurt like hell.

 

*****

 

It was like torture. Strapped in to a flying metal tube, which was an incredible invention to be sure, but still moved at a glacial pace compared to the cycle of dark thoughts that tore through him. Every few minutes he would lose the fight and replay his conversation with the hospital again in his head, picking out new words and stresses in the doctor's voice, anything that might indicate something he had missed. That maybe things weren't "stable but critical", just _critical_. That the doctor was implying something about how his patient's boyfriend was sunning himself in India while she fought off the impending eclampsia, very much alone.

 

It had seemed such a good idea at the time, but then, all his ideas were like that - barely thought through, because thinking invited criticism, and he had always been ready to tear down new things for fear of change. Better to just jump into an action, and worry about it later, than to give himself the chance to second guess the situation.

 

And sure, maybe on the flight over to meet Mindy's parents, some doubt had crept in. But he knew that she dealt in the currency of big gestures, and what was a bigger gesture?

 

He knew what the biggest gesture was. It was just one he wasn't quite capable of.

 

At six AM, knuckles white, he found himself throwing up in the tiny plane bathroom. It was finally happening. The worry was eating him up from the insides. He had nothing left to give.

 

But they were still five hours out of New York.

 

*****

 

Either they had forgotten she was an OB/GYN too, or they were choosing to ignore the fact, because everything they told her was couched in flowery generalities, the sort of bullshit she told her own patients when she didn't want them to worry and make things worse. She knew what all the code words meant, even through the haze that had settled over her. She knew what all the drugs were for, what it meant that the headaches hadn't dissipated,  why they kept asking if she was _sure_ that there wasn't someone who could come sit with her.

 

All she could do was lay there, hand on her belly, and watch the fetal monitor through a blurred gaze. As if it would make the slightest difference.

 

She knew Danny was on his way; a nurse had come to tell her a few hours ago. She knew that meant that her friends would be high-tailing it back from Texas, too. But she was struggling to care right now. All her energy, what little there was of it, was focused with pin-point precision on just getting minute to minute without succumbing to the dozens of complications she knew waited round the corner of pre-eclampsia. This was a time when she had genuine hatred for her medical education; blissful ignorance would be so much more calming.

 

It didn't quite make sense that it was taking her boyfriend - and he wasn't more than that, was he? - so long to be by her side, but then, time had lost most of its meaning since she'd been plugged into the machines on the OB ward. A small, dark part of her figured that the delay meant Something, Something about his commitment to her and to their child, Something about how easy it was for him to be away from her. She could easily have let that small part of her blow it up and out of proportion - she'd done it many times before, after all. But, again, and perhaps luckily, her focus was elsewhere.

 

Maybe unconsciousness was the answer.

 

*****

 

By the time the plane landed, his skin had taken a greyish tint, his eyes wide and bloodshot. His knuckles were now scratched and raw, having found out the utter futility of punching a bathroom wall. To a stranger, he probably looked like a junkie desperate for his next hit. The guy at customs probably agreed. He didn't care.

 

He abandoned his luggage and ran full-pelt through the airport, dodging past reuniting couples and car service guys with little cardboard signs, until he reached the cab stands outside. It took a significant bribe - he could live without his watch, and the cash contents of his wallet - to get the next cab out from under an impatient looking businessman, but again, he didn't care. The ability to care about these minute little nonsenses - his health, his wellbeing, his material possessions - had plummeted out of a fifteen-story hotel room window when the doctor had said "you should get here as soon as you can".

 

The drive into the city used to be his favourite part of a trip; coming back home, seeing the same skyline and knowing that things were as they should be. But he didn't have that comfort now, and it felt as if the world as he knew it was shifting, tilting away from him and out of his reach. This whole journey had been his purgatory, and he didn't know whether what was waiting for him at the end would be heaven or hell. All he knew was what life normally dealt him.

 

Nobody tried to stop him as he fell through the ward doors and dragged himself, somehow still moving, down the hall. The walls felt closer than normal, the colours more drab. The air was thinner. He came to a halt in her doorway.

 

The monitor beeped. Her foggy gaze found his.

 

"Hi."


	2. Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after a trans-Atlantic flight?  
> Purest angst.

The monitor beeped. Her foggy gaze found his.

"Hi."

She didn't respond straight away, looking him over as if she were trying to catch hold of some of the details before they floated away. It was unnerving to see her like this; she was normally sharp, used pin-point precision to latch on to a collar that needed straightening, or a sauce stain, or something. Now, she couldn't land on anything.

Finally, she cleared her throat, a noise that barely registered. "Hi," was her echo, and for a moment he wondered if that was all she was going to say. "The baby's okay."

He moved closer, his fingers curling round the cool metal railings that separated her from him. As if to check the veracity of her words, his gaze darted to the fetal monitor behind her, which beeped serenely. It didn't seem to know the power it held over this room. " _You_ don't seem very okay," he replied, and the words didn't crack like he thought they might. All the self-control he'd been missing for the previous eighteen hours seemed to have put in an appearance at last. "Why didn't you call me?"

The detachment in her eyes sent a chill through him. "I didn't want to disturb the wedding."

"Min," he sighed, reaching for her chart; he needed something in his hands to steady them. She still hadn't reached for him, and it left him drifting, without purpose. "This is you and our baby. That's more important than a wedding."

She didn't say anything; her gaze moved down to where her hand rested on the swell of her belly. He noticed that the bright pink manicure was chipped on several fingers. He'd never seen that on her before.

"Besides," he added, hoping to bring some levity to the situation, and yet knowing that it wouldn't work. "Besides, I wasn't at the wedding."

She didn't even blink. "No?"

"No." Finally, he couldn't hold himself back any longer - he reached out to take her hand in his. "I went to visit your mom and dad."

 

****

 

"You're pregnant."

Gwen's gaze was steady but appraising; it was unnerving how easily the woman could read her mind. She'd always had this talent, like a sixth sense, an uncanny ability to strip away the pretences Mindy liked to shelter behind and pull the truth kicking and screaming to the front.

"Uh...yes," Mindy replied, glancing down at her stomach. "Oh god, am I showing already? That can't be possible..."

"No, you're not showing." Gwen passed her a glass of water before slipping elegantly on to the kitchen stool next to her. "But you quit your fellowship at Stanford after _battling_ to get on it in the first place, and out of the blue? Either you were pregnant or you were dying, and you look too healthy to be dying."

It was like being best friends with Sherlock Holmes, except without the drug addiction and the British accent. "Okay, well, thank you for saying I don't look like I'm dying." She shrugged. "Leaving Stanford was hard, yeah. But it was the right call."

Another silence, another long look that was more akin to an x-ray than a mere glance. "You don't seem sure about that."

She sighed. "No, no. I am sure. Danny offered to come to San Francisco, but...this is the place to raise our family. I know it is." There was the slightest wobble to her voice that no one else but Gwen would be able to detect. "I can be a fertility specialist anywhere. I _am_ that awesome."

"I know you are, sweetie," Gwen agreed, and turned her gaze to the pristine marble countertop. The whole of her kitchen was smooth and shiny, not a water ring in sight and certainly no empty pie wrappers cascading from every surface. It was kinda nice to be somewhere so clean - and so light. It made Danny's place look like it was underground. "You're the most awesome of all the fertility specialists."

It took all her confidence to gather a breath and ask: "Why do I feel a 'but' coming?"

"Min..." She paused again. "I don't know. You don't seem...settled, yet. I don't know why, but you don't."

Now it was her turn to study the countertop. She splayed her fingers out, analysing the dark marbled grey against the shocking pink of her nails. "I guess I'm....worried."

"That's only natural," Gwen pointed out. "Remember how much I freaked out when I found out I was pregnant with Riley?"

It had been spectacular. Mindy and Alex had sat back with popcorn while their normally put-together friend unravelled like a frayed ball of string. "Yeah..."

"What exactly are you worried about?"

It felt both freeing and terrifying to be voicing doubts which so far had only existed in the busy depths of her mind. "Danny. I'm worried about Danny." At Gwen's raised eyebrow, she shook her head. "We keep fighting and he keeps...apologising, and it's sweet, but I have to wonder..."

"Min," Gwen reached for her hand, gave it a squeeze which was a little too firm to be comforting. "He loves you, right?"

"I know he does," she agreed, and looked up to meet her friend's gaze. "But love isn't all there is."

"No," Gwen allowed. "But it's pretty damn important."

Mindy took another deep breath; why did everything feel like a burden? All the excitement and nervous happiness she had felt in Danny's presence had melted away as soon as he was gone, and left her with a small but significant ball of worry in her gut. It felt like lead. "I guess I'm wondering... would he still be in this if he hadn't knocked me up? He's walked away from commitment so many times, Gwen. If I wasn't pregnant...would we have fallen apart already?"

Gwen pursed her lips worriedly. "No one but you can answer that, honey."

"I know," she replied, her voice just barely audible. "And I'm scared of the answer."

 

****

 

"I went to visit your mom and dad."

She couldn't gather the energy to change her expression; it wasn't like what he was telling her was even that much of a surprise, anyway. He had spent the whole of their relationship making mistakes, then rushing to mop the mess up in whatever way seemed most romantic. She could see Castellano Logic shining through every element of this decision.

"Right."

He sighed, and she had to look up, then. He looked as if he was just barely controlling himself, controlling the words that would otherwise come spewing out. Jet lag probably didn't help that situation. "'Right'? That's all you have to say? Min, I met your parents. We had tea and - some kind of spiced cake thing which wasn't to my taste, but I wasn't going to be rude - "

"What do you want me to say?" she asked, peeling her hand from his. He looked down as if the movement were a gunshot. "Congratulations? You did the bare minimum to be a decent person?"

His frown was instant. "Wait, that's not fair - "

"This is what you do. You say what you have to say and do what you have to do to keep me with you," she interrupted again, and her voice finally found the energy it had been lacking. "But you won't give me what I need."

He tried to reach for her hand again, but fell against empty air. "Min. Please. I'm trying here."

"This is the way you left me, Danny." She draws the sheets closer round her. "This is how it happens every time. When things aren't on your terms, you walk away."

"I - I walked away to _India_ , Min." He stepped back from the bed, trying to find some calm when nothing but madness seems to exist around him. "I did that for _you_."

"I didn't ask you to do that," she replied, and her voice was flat again. "The one thing I asked for is apparently way too much."

"This - " his voice was grasping now, failing. Falling. "It can't always come back to this."

"It does." She shifted slightly, closed her eyes for a moment. The headaches certainly weren't improving with this new dynamic. "I shouldn't have to keep convincing you to be with me. That's not how relationships work."

"You don't need to convince me of anything, Mindy. I _love_ you." Both hands clench round the railing now. "Don't do this. I came back to see you, to see our baby, to make sure you're okay - "

" I love you, Danny. God, I love you." Her next words cut through like a scalpel. "But I didn't need you. I didn't need you here."

He didn't know what to say to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welllllllll some of you did ask for more. Obviously I wouldn't want this to actually happen (although some of the argument probably could be said!), and I agree with what MK and co have said about them being mature adults who work through things, etc etc. But....angst!

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with a playlist in the background which I called "sad songs": does that not say it all? ;)  
> Thank you so much for all your lovely feedback. Comments are always welcomed! Come find me on tumblr if you like; I'm cesays on there.


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